J.W.Anderson / Spring 2013 RTW

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Jonathan Anderson has had a big fashion week. First of all, there was the launch of his J.W. Anderson x Topshop collaboration, which was stripped bare of tartan trousers and several other items hours after it launched in the High Street store’s Oxford Circus branch in London. The commerciality of the bits and pieces in that mini-collection—all the kilts, schoolgirl pinafores, and knits—has been palpable throughout the London shows, where women have been turning up wearing them as trophies.

Then, on Monday, he pulled together a show of his spring collection on the Topshop-shared runway in a tent in Bedford Square. The audience expected nothing less than style leadership from a young designer so many girls relate to.

Did he perform? Yes, to a point. J.W. Anderson tops have always been big sellers. He understands the need for wardrobe staples. In the past, his clothes have been riffs on classics, but this season there was more of a sense of abstraction. Big frills—a motif he used on many items throughout the show—were added to the sliced-to-one-side, asymmetrical knits, on the hems of skirts and shorts. Cleverly, they appeared on his new bags, too: flat, quilted, rectangle-shaped pouches surrounded by flounces, just enough of a fillip of oddness to make them desirable. Also spot-on: the enamel chain-link jewelry in gray, yellow, and pink, used as chokers, pendants, and earrings—reminiscent, maybe, of sixties couture, but utterly now.

It was hard, though, to define what the look is as a whole. Anderson added print—dabs of abstract color and minute flowers—on skinny pants, wrap-over jackets, and crisp shell tops, which, broken down into separates, will sell. There’s an entire generation entranced by J.W. Anderson, as the Topshop success proved, and editors vie to shoot his main line for magazines. It deserves to translate to sales at retail, even if the whole isn’t quite digestible at first sight. But then again, who knows? Maybe the strange proportions and clunky ankle boots are a sign of things to come.